Stockholders’ Equity and Earnings Per Share

Stock Repurchase Program — On July 17, 2013, the Company’s Board authorized a stock repurchase program to buy back up to $100.0 million of the Company’s common stock. The Company has not repurchased any shares under this program thereafter, including during 2018 and 2017. Although this program has no stated expiration date, the Company does not intend to repurchase any shares pursuant to this program absent further action of the Company’s Board.

Warrant — The Company acquired MetroCorp Bancshares, Inc. on January 17, 2014. Prior to the acquisition, MetroCorp Bancshares, Inc. had outstanding warrants to purchase 771,429 shares of its common stock. Upon the acquisition, the rights of the warrant holders were converted into the rights to acquire 230,282 shares of East West’s common stock until January 16, 2019. The warrant was exercised on January 7, 2019.

Quarterly Dividends — The Company declared quarterly cash dividends on its common stock of $0.20 per share for the first two quarters of 2018 and $0.23 per share for the remaining quarters of 2018. The quarterly cash dividends declared on its common stock for each quarter of 2017 and 2016 were $0.20 per share. Total cash dividends of $126.0 million, $117.0 million and $116.6 million were declared to the Company’s common stockholders during the years ended December 31, 2018, 2017 and 2016, respectively.

Earnings Per Share — Basic EPS is computed by dividing net income available to common stockholders by the weighted-average number of common shares outstanding during each period. Diluted EPS is computed by dividing net income available to common stockholders by the weighted-average number of common shares outstanding during each period, plus any incremental dilutive common share equivalents calculated for warrants and RSUs outstanding using the treasury stock method. With the adoption of ASU 2016-09 during the first quarter of 2017, the impact of excess tax benefits and deficiencies is no longer included in the calculation of diluted EPS. As a result of applying ASU 2016-09 in 2017, the Company recorded income tax benefits of $4.8 million or $0.03 per common share for the year ended December 31, 2017 related to the vesting of the RSUs.

The following table presents the EPS calculations for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2017 and 2016:




($ and shares in thousands, except per share data)	Year Ended December 31,
($ and shares in thousands, except per share data)	2018		2017		2016
Basic:
Net income	$	703,701	$	505,624	$	431,677

Basic weighted-average number of shares outstanding	144,862		144,444		144,087
Basic EPS	$	4.86	$	3.50	$	3.00

Diluted:
Net income	$	703,701	$	505,624	$	431,677

Basic weighted-average number of shares outstanding	144,862		144,444		144,087
Diluted potential common shares ⁽¹⁾	1,307		1,469		1,085
Diluted weighted-average number of shares outstanding ⁽¹⁾	146,169		145,913		145,172
Diluted EPS	$	4.81	$	3.47	$	2.97


(1)	Includes dilutive shares from RSUs and warrants for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2017 and 2016.

For the years ended December 31, 2018, 2017 and 2016, 10 thousand, 14 thousand and 8 thousand weighted-average shares of anti-dilutive RSUs, respectively, were excluded from the diluted EPS computation.